Birds of the Shore

These Western Sandpipers spend most of the day scurrying up and down the shore in search of food . . .

. . . for no apparent reason whatsoever, the sandpipers will suddenly take to the air, all at the same time, twisting and turning in unison with a precision and timing that would suggest a single organism.

One of many willets along the beach. I believe this to be a juvenile.

A short walk down the beach delivers an amazing variety of shore birds. This is a whimbrel.

And this is a greater yellowlegs.

It took me a while to identify this friendly oriole, which was busy doing acrobatics in a thorn bush near the ocean. It’s a streaked-back oriole, a cousin of our more familiar baltimore oriole, but rarely seen north of Mexico.

Another shot of our sandpipers in flight. This time successfully amazing a small boy with a bicycle.